She stopped Finn from saving hundreds of people, effectively causing their deaths.

I think this is a point where the film’s ambiguity doesn’t help it.

I view that sequence as Finn trying for a noble sacrifice but it becoming clear (to onlookers, and the audience) that he’s not going to get close enough to destroy the gun, so Rose knocks him out of the way to stop him from killing himself for nothing.

But I can see why you would read it as him being prevented from completing a suicide mission that would have succeeded.

I view that sequence as Finn trying for a noble sacrifice but it becoming clear (to onlookers, and the audience) that he’s not going to get close enough to destroy the gun, so Rose knocks him out of the way to stop him from killing himself for nothing.

But I can see why you would read it as him being prevented from completing a suicide mission that would have succeeded.

Yeah the movie should have made that clear.

I still think it’s a bad part in the movie. If the sacrifice would have worked then Rose is insane to stop him and if it wouldn’t Finn looks like an idiot. In either case the big heroic moment he could have had in the movies is spoiled.

Thinking about it these movies treat almost al the good guys like idiots, except Rey.

But I can see why you would read it as him being prevented from completing a suicide mission that would have succeeded.

I don’t think it was clear at all that he was destined to fail. But there’s a bigger problem I have with the Rose moment, beyond the silliness of her actions (I’ll save Finn except the Empire is right beside us and they’ll shoot us within the next minute).

Rose stops Finn from sacrificing himself. Right after Leia let’s Holdi sacrifice herself. It’s such a disservice to Leia, making her look like a feckless leader who’s led all these young people astray to their early deaths on the promise of rebellion that she couldn’t really make happen and had no plan for. Leia looks like a crazy person, caught up in trying to relive her youth she thinks she can save the galaxy once again and has thousands of wide eyed hero worshipers devoutly follow her to their deaths.

They shit on Han by making him a bum, they shit of Chewie by continuing to have him be someone with no life of their own, Luke’s a coward and Leia is an awful leader. Even poor R2, he just shuts down.

All this is deliberate. When Kylo Ren says forget history, kill them all so we can be something new, that’s Rain Johnson talking about the franchise. And it’s as irrational and shitty as Kylo is in the film. I get that Disney want to make Star Wars just a property beyond the original trilogy, I get that they have to kill the original trilogy in order to be free of it, but I think they’ve killed the whole franchise with their ham fisted methods. I’m glad so many people are rejecting the franchise, it’s nothing less that what Disney deserves.

Well, that’s partially because Finn and Poe do act like idiots in the movie.

Like Arjan says, that was Johnson’s decision after all.

This is something that bugs me with a lot of material, by the way, not just this movie. In way too many movies but especially series, the characters are horribly incompetent and bad at what they do. Series like Flash or Arrow constantly rely on the characters being stupid to generate conflict. Why the hell can’t they be really, really good at what they do and the antagonistic forces just are like that, too?

The most obvious example was the West Wing, one of the series doing this absolutely right - everybody in the White House was incredibly smart, witty, competent, great at what they did - suddenly doing it absolutely wrong after Sorkin left: they all turned into incompetent, blundering idiots from one episode to the next.

I’d gladly watch an interesting, messy movie like Last Jedi over another rote adventure movie.

The original Star Wars was that to me. It’s not a great adventure movie, nor does it have the best utilization of it’s cast. It’s a weird, wonky, fantasy-sci-fi mash-up directed by a man who had no talent for making something like that. Yet…that’s the charm isn’t it?

The original Star Wars was that to me. It’s not a great adventure movie, nor does it have the best utilization of it’s cast. It’s a weird, wonky, fantasy-sci-fi mash-up directed by a man who had no talent for making something like that. Yet…that’s the charm isn’t it?

Right, but does that mean the earnestness of the ambition to create something you put the heart into has to be gone as well?

That’s what gets me about TLJ. I don’t mind deconstruction, I don’t mind taking new angles at a formula, or looking at things through difference philosophical or moral lenses. But TLJ does so disingenuously, half-heartedly, and hollowly that it doesn’t feel like it’s about anything more than superficial.

Lucas created what is barely a decent movie…but he wanted to make something fun, when he had zero talent for it, and it comes across.

This is something that bugs me with a lot of material, by the way, not just this movie. In way too many movies but especially series, the characters are horribly incompetent and bad at what they do. Series like Flash or Arrow constantly rely on the characters being stupid to generate conflict. Why the hell can’t they be really, really good at what they do and the antagonistic forces just are like that, too?

Yeah, that drove me crazy with Lost,where characters would do stupid things and withhold information from each other for no purpose other than to advance the plot.

Right, but does that mean the earnestness of the ambition to create something you put the heart into has to be gone as well?

That’s what gets me about TLJ. I don’t mind deconstruction, I don’t mind taking new angles at a formula, or looking at things through difference philosophical or moral lenses. But TLJ does so disingenuously, half-heartedly, and hollowly that it doesn’t feel like it’s about anything more than superficial.

Lucas created what is barely a decent movie…but he wanted to make something fun, when he had zero talent for it, and it comes across.

All I’m saying is that with Star Wars it’s fine to hope that a movie will be good, but it probably won’t be, and while hit rate has gotten slightly better in the last few years in my opinion, it’s still not a great hit rate.